# How much difference does a GOOD briar pipe make?



## jakespeed (Sep 28, 2009)

I've been reading through this forum, and something that seems to come up somewhat frequently is the fact that the smoking experience between a low end briar and a higher end briar can be very different. 

Most of my pipes that I have right now are all estate briar (or some cheap imitation) that I got off eBay. I have a few Kaywoodies, a Willard, and some others that I can't recall right now, but I would guess they are in the same range. 

My main question is, at what price/brand point does the pipe improve the experience (no gurgling, bowl doesn't get too hot, etc.)? I realize that I'm fairly new to this, and I don't always get gurgling, but even on some of my pipes when I make a point to smoke them slow, it still happens, and I end up with a hot bowl.


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## dmkerr (Oct 27, 2008)

More expensive briar pipes have less of a chance of flaws in the wood that can later cause problems (although there are still no guarantees).

More expensive pipes often have nicer grain, hand-cut stems as opposed to machine cut, are more properly cured, and exhibit fewer or no errors in physics (proper draft hole placement, etc). Gurgling, for example, could be due to the briar not being cured properly and it is therefore retaining sap (moisture). The briar used for cheaper pipes is often not cured as long, which makes sense because curing raises costs.

Consequently, more expensive pipes are more likely to smoke better than a cheap pipe. 

The price point where we move from cheap to "good" is a moving target, and is based more on opinion than fact. My personal opinion is that my Savinelli Baronet that cost $50 new smokes as well as any briar pipe I've ever owned. It's ugly and has a cheesy machine cut stem but it smokes as nice as my most expensive briar, a Dunhill ODA. Savinelli understands the physics of pipe smoking and they cheap out where it matters least, which in the case of the Baronet is in the grain of the wood and the stem quality. Do I prefer my Dunhill? Yes. But does it provide a cooler, smoother, "better" smoke in an objective sense? No. It's just built to a higher standard in areas that have nothing to do with the actual smoking experience.

I've seen this question posed at various times and it continues to be a good one.


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## drastic_quench (Sep 12, 2008)

Ignoring the aesthetic, high end pipes tend to have a higher quality briar. This means fewer flaws, but also seems to trend towards the pipe not heating up as much. In my view, this is due to both its higher quality and the age of the briar.

The second half of the equation is engineering - the drilling of the bowl and shank, as well as the shaping of the stem.

There are exceptions found in the superbly smoking basket pipe, and the odd poorly drilled Dunhill, but what we're discussing here is odds or likelihood. Buy a few dozen Grabows, and there's a chance you could have one smoke as well as a high quality briar -- or you could just buy one high-quality briar and be assured of a much better likelihood. When you couple this with aesthetic concerns, it's no wonder there's a large group of pipe smokers that don't buy pipes cheaper than mid-grade Stannies, Savs, and Petes.


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## cp478 (Oct 23, 2008)

dmkerr said:


> More expensive briar pipes have less of a chance of flaws in the wood that can later cause problems (although there are still no guarantees).
> 
> More expensive pipes often have nicer grain, hand-cut stems as opposed to machine cut, are more properly cured, and exhibit fewer or no errors in physics (proper draft hole placement, etc). Gurgling, for example, could be due to the briar not being cured properly and it is therefore retaining sap (moisture). The briar used for cheaper pipes is often not cured as long, which makes sense because curing raises costs.
> 
> ...


I couldn't say it any better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## ChronoB (Nov 4, 2007)

jakespeed said:


> I've been reading through this forum, and something that seems to come up somewhat frequently is the fact that the smoking experience between a low end briar and a higher end briar can be very different.
> 
> Most of my pipes that I have right now are all estate briar (or some cheap imitation) that I got off eBay. I have a few Kaywoodies, a Willard, and some others that I can't recall right now, but I would guess they are in the same range.
> 
> My main question is, at what price/brand point does the pipe improve the experience (no gurgling, bowl doesn't get too hot, etc.)? I realize that I'm fairly new to this, and I don't always get gurgling, but even on some of my pipes when I make a point to smoke them slow, it still happens, and I end up with a hot bowl.


When you purchase a pipe you're paying for several things:

the quality of the briar itself,
the method/time used to age the briar,
the quality/time used to engineer the pipe,
the quality/time used to cut fit the mouthpiece (and the quality of the mouthpiece material.

For a new pipe, without paying at least $50 and up, you can pretty much assume that all those things will be on the lower end of the scale.

Now, past a certain point I'm sure that what you are paying for is brand name/carver name cache. What is that price point? I don't think anyone can say for sure. My guess is probably in the $200 to $300 range.

Is a $300 Radice that much better than a $100 Savinelli? Maybe. A little better briar and aging yields less break-in time and better heat/moisture dissipation properties. Some pipemakers, like Ashton or Randy Wiley oil cure their pipes, so that's part of what you're paying for.

But pipes being what they are, it is possible for a $75.00 pipe to be a great smoker, and an $500 pipe to smoke lousy. Every pipe purchase is a risk, regardless of price point. That just goes along with pipe collecting.


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## indigosmoke (Sep 1, 2009)

Great discussion guys. I thought the following comments from a couple of well respected pipe makers from another forum might be of interest on the subject of oil cured briar.

"Thats now [sic] thorny question as some pipemakers swear by it and others think it more a marketing ploy. Originally practiced by Dunhill, it was marketed it as a way to remove impurities or tannins in the briar.

The inner bowls were coated with oil, possibly a peanut oil or something like that and then placed on special heating racks to drive the oil thru the pipe.

All briar blocks are first cured by the briar cutters. This is accomplished by boiling the briar in large vats for at least 24 hours removing the sap in the wood. This serves a dual purpose of cleaning the briar and preventing the blocks ( for the most part) from cracking when drying. I have seen this process and have done a short photo essay on it:
http://www.amsmoke.com/Writings/PIPE_ESSAYS/briar_folder/BriarStory.html

I believe Dunhill initially did this to hasten the drying process. After the wood is boiled it can take 6-12 months to dry out and be workable. If you re sitting on a large inventory of wet wood it would behoove you to figure out a way to make it useful quicker.

These pipes were reputed to have a nutty taste to them while they were broken in. Dunhill stopped doing this many years ago. Bill Ashton Taylor claimed that after a couple dozen bowls you could no longer taste any of the effects of oil curing.

Many pipemakers have tried to recreate this process. I remember Trever Talbert writing quite a bit about his experiments with oil curing. Lee Von Erk has a reputation for making very good oil cured pipes.

IMO ( being on the air only cure side of the equation) is that if the briar is well cured in the first place ( by the cutter) it needs no further fussing with other than letting it air dry for a couple years.There have been many excellent pipes made by either school of curing and I dont think there s enough empirical evidence to say one is better than the other."

- Mark Tinsky

"The technical idea of oil curing at least partly relates to extracting bad tasting resins from the briar - put oil in, resins are soluble in said oil, get oil back out, presto, nice clean good tasting briar. On top of that, if you use just the right oils and process the thing intelligently, you get a pipe that tastes nice and draws very smoothly, quite possibly a pipe that is less likely to soak up a lot of tarry substances in the smoke.

My experiments with oil curing left me convinced that a good oil cured pipe may be slightly superior to a non o/c right out of the box, but that there is not a huge benefit - I don't think I could tell an o/c vs not after 20 smokes, and certainly I have some exceptionally good pipes that are not oil cured briar.

To reiterate Mark's point, the key element in all of this is how well boiled and dried the briar is in the first place. In all honesty, the oil gotten back out of the wood I treated had no taste difference at all when compared to fresh oil. I could not claim that any substantial amount of impurities were driven from the wood.

If I got some cheap, inferior briar that was not tasting good, I would probably make up stummels and oil cure it in hopes of making it taste better, but when buying "good" briar, I no longer concern myself with it.

I also had some drastic failures in my experiments, pipes that retained a tremendous amount of oil almost no mater what, and pipes that seemed to cure very nicely and tasted like pig's balls when smoked. Oil choice, treatment method (hot, cold, long short), wood origin, etc all play a role in the resulting pipe.

In short, it's kind of cool, but it doesn't make Mixture 79 any good."

- Sasquatch


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## GuitarDan (Nov 26, 2009)

Poorly crafted junk is just that... junk. After a modest level of quality there is a steeeeeeep curve to diminishing returns. 

I believe the following influence the "quality" of a smoke far more than the difference between a C+ grade pipe and an A grade pipe:
sipping/puffing technique, tobacco composition/blend, tobacco cut/moisture/prep, packing of the bowl, filter, cake, airway dimensions, tobacco chamber dimensions, tobacco chamber shape, shank length, mouthpiece length, P-lip? and on to infinity...

Also: I imagine that no matter how comfy pink and white bunny-eared crocs might be, I could never wear them with sincere appreciation, similarly- if the pipe is not aesthetically pleasing, I doubt I'd enjoy smoking it as much...

No offense to you and your footwear...


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## Z.Kramer (Jul 2, 2009)

I have been told by two different employees at two different B&Ms (the first being a small one in NJ, and the second being Nat Sherman in Manhattan) that a $50 pipe will smoke noticeably better than a $25 and a $75 noticeably better than that etc, etc... up until about $95-$120. They both said at that point you begin paying for many other features and the difference in how they smoke will not be noticeable.


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## Granger (Jul 24, 2010)

...or you could by fine quality Meerschaum Block and be happy all the time


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## mike t (Oct 21, 2008)

you guys know that alot of b&m's and i myself have done it, tell a new pipe smoker that a savinelli or a peterson smoke better than a doc grabow,but if they haven't smoked a doc before they don't know. human nature is funny when saying something is bad or crap, makes most people wanna try it. point is smoke whatcha like


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